Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

Here is a quote from the newspaper article posted with the first of those photos:

"Following the parade of the score or more of the beauties between the cheering crowds of bathing beach fans, the former faced half a dozen movie machines and a battery of press cameras. Later one of the winners obligingly did a modified "shimmy dance" for the movie men. "

This must have been the finale of the "shimmy dance"! I'd sure love to see the film from the "movie machines", but it is exciting just to see this! Dot looks younger in this than in the other photos of her, and cuter, too. Maybe because the sun was right in her face in the others?

To my eye, the focal plane in this photo is not parallel to the lens. It is at an angle, farther back to the left bottom and closer on the right top. This suggests that the picture was taken with a camera that had bellows (perhaps a "field camera," see http://www.fiberq.com/cam/ for examples).

[Any of the view cameras used back then would have had an adjustable focal plane. - Dave]

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.